


spiral

by gandmvsm



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Minor Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, i fully encourage it but there's only like 4 words of it, if you want to read it that way go ahead, open-ended otabek/yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 05:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9306659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gandmvsm/pseuds/gandmvsm
Summary: It starts with Georgi’s press conference in April. He meets a nice girl, moves to Stockholm, never visits his home rink in St. Petersburg anymore.Yuri's losing his family, one by one.





	

It starts with Georgi’s press conference in April.

But that’s not right, is it? It starts the year before, with Victor running off to Japan. But Victor had come back, dragging another skater with him. And sure, Yuuri isn’t Russian, Yuuri spent half his life in Japan and half his career in America, but he’s as much a part of the family as anyone.

Victor had come back and started winning again and for half a season life goes on.

But then Georgi is twenty-eight and knows that any chance he had of being on top is dead, died the moment Victor announced his return. He was too old, and the stars didn’t have pity on him when he was born. Doomed to nip at Victor’s heels, not good enough to beat him, not young enough to succeed him. So Georgi is twenty-eight and announces his retirement. He meets a nice girl, moves to Stockholm, never visits his home rink in St. Petersburg anymore.

Victor is next, and this time he means it. He’s pushing thirty, and every time he falls in practice it takes him a little longer to get back up. Yuuri mentions offhand that their medicine cabinet at home has more painkillers than the pharmacy does.

Victor tweets one morning that he’s retiring for real this time, and runs off with Yuuri to Barcelona that afternoon. They’re gone for weeks, but they come back, platinum bands on their ring fingers. Victor always comes back. Even in retirement, he can’t keep off of the ice as long as Yuuri is there.

Yuri hits his growth spurt, has a season where he barely scrapes his way into the Grand Prix and finishes fifth. He claws his way back to the top of the podium the next year. He spends nights staring into a mirror, wondering when he needs to cut his hair.

Yuuri declares his final season’s theme to be “gratitude.” His free skate is all the romantic garbage of his first season with Victor, but somehow even more sickening to sit through. The fans, of course, eat it up. Yuuri has always been popular in Japan and even America, and ever since he stole Victor Russia can’t get enough either.

Yuuri’s final exhibition skate is electric, though, guitars and drums and could have been lifted straight from Yuri’s workout playlist. It ends with the quad Salchow Yuri had helped him land years ago in Hasetsu.

Yuri walks out of the stadium during the standing ovation, walks into the first bar he finds, drinks himself into a stupor. Because now Yuuri is gone too.

Mila lands a flip horribly wrong and snaps her tibia. By this point she’s twenty-three and it just isn’t going to heal right anymore.

Of course other skaters have started training at the St. Petersburg rink by now. Yuri recognizes himself in some of their eyes. There’s hunger there. They’re going to shatter the world records held by Yuri Plisetsky, take his name out of the books and take his place on the podium and overwrite any proof he even existed.

Not yet, he snarls. He’s only twenty. They can pry gold from his cold, dead hands.

He doesn’t teach any of them how to land a quad Salchow.

The summer after Yuri turns twenty-one his grandfather passes away and Yakov has a heart attack. He takes the season off, visits Otabek in Almaty, follows Victor and Yuuri to Hasetsu. He cuts his hair.

There’s nothing left for him in St. Petersburg.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes we all just need to take a moment to remind ourselves just how much younger yuri is than the rest of the cast. like "they'll all be in retirement homes playing bingo while yuri's still out there winning gold" younger.
> 
> possibly a prequel? It's deliberately left open for it, so we'll see if I get the urge to write some teen (well, young adult) angst anytime soon


End file.
